Entry List: Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Presented by Lear

For Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear. 26 cars are currently entered in the Prototype and GT Daytona classes. GT Le Mans teams have the weekend off, partially because the weekend is a partial clash with the Le Mans Test Day.

In the Prototype class, there are 14 cars entered. There are two changes of note here. First, Spirit of Daytona Racing returns after missing the last two races following this crash at Sebring.

Regular drivers Matt McMurry and Tristan Vautier will be back in the No. 90 Cadillac DPi-V.R. this weekend. However, full-time entrant Performance Tech Motorsports has decided to not make the trip to Detroit. They’ll be filling the time that would have been used to travel to Detroit for the race in order to test and get prepared for Watkins Glen.

In the GT Daytona class, there were originally only 11 cars entered. That number increased to 12 on Wednesday when Meyer Shank Racing announced that the No. 86 Acura will be in the field, thanks to increased sponsorship from AutoNation. Katherine Legge will be back in the car, but instead of Àlvaro Parente, she will be joined by Mario Farnbacher.

Alessandro Balzan announced Tuesday that he will have to miss the race this weekend due to a minor surgical procedure.

In place of Balzan will be Jeff Segal, who just raced in last weekend’s Pirelli World Challenge GT SprintX races at Lime Rock and competes in the endurance races for Scuderia Corsa. He’s keeping things quite light with the news.

Yes, Balzan is a rather short man. However, being short is not necessarily a bad thing.

SunEnergy1 Racing’s revolving door of co-drivers continues in Detroit with Bernd Schneider partnering up with Kenny Habul. Schneider is best known as a four-time DTM champion who briefly in Formula 1 for Zakspeed and Arrows from 1988-1990. That was a period of time in which there many more entries than spots on the grid. In 34 attempts, Schneider only qualified for nine races, failed to qualify for 11 and failed to pre-qualify for 14.

Turner Motorsport has tapped Robby Foley to drive the No. 96 BMW M6 GT3 alongside Bill Auberlen. Foley competed at Daytona and Sebring for P1 Motorsports, which he has also raced for in IMSA Prototype Challenge presented by Mazda.

About Phil Allaway

Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor. Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as Tony Stewart's Arctic Cat All Star Circuit of Champions.